This party has no MPs and no candidates. So why are NSW voters so infatuated?

March 19, 2026 — 8:30am

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It is one thing for a political party to be riding high in the opinion polls when it has candidates or, better still, MPs. It’s another matter entirely when the party has neither. That is, a hypothetical option. One Nation is precisely that for the voters who will elect the next state parliament in NSW.

We have watched as the right-wing fringe populist party has, in recent months, climbed its way up in the polls in the national context. Its leader, Pauline Hanson, has been a player – on and off – since her election to federal parliament 30 years ago. As the nation’s social cohesion has fractured, particularly since the Bondi massacre in December, Hanson’s force in politics has only gathered pace.

However, in the NSW parliament, the three MPs who once sat in the upper house under Hanson’s orange banner – Mark Latham, Rod Roberts and Tania Mihailuk – have long fled the party. One Nation has zero presence in Macquarie Street.

So why are almost a quarter of NSW voters, according to the latest Resolve polling, prepared to back Hanson’s chimera of a party as it stands in this state?

It is easy to assume disgruntled blue-collar blokes from the bush are driving One Nation’s rise. And, in........

© The Sydney Morning Herald